World Briefs

Published Monday, February 04, 2002

Chickens destroyed to avoid flu

HONG KONG (AP) -- Health workers completed the slaughter of more than 100,000 chickens Sunday at a Hong Kong farm where the deaths of thousands of birds had raised fears of a second outbreak of avian flu in less than a year.

About 100 workers in gloves and protective white suits began killing the birds Saturday after 10,000 chickens died mysteriously there earlier last week.

The government said all the birds had been slaughtered before nightfall but that the removal of the carcasses would not be completed until Monday. The farm also will be thoroughly cleansed Monday, it said.

The birds were dumped into large airtight bins and then gassed with carbon dioxide.

They were later put into garbage bags for disposal.

Cambodians vote for local councils

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Prime Minister Hun Sen's party won most seats in the capital, preliminary results showed, and was expected to do well in the countryside in Cambodia's first-ever local election Sunday.

The vote -- hailed as a major step toward strengthening democracy in Cambodia -- was to choose councils to govern 1,621 communes or clusters of villages across the Southeast Asian nation.

The balloting was largely free of the violence that plagued the campaign.

According to initial results, the CPP won 70 of Phnom Penh's 76 communes while the opposition Sam Rainsy party won the other six. The royalist Funcinpec party was third in the capital, although it won no seats, said Yim Phal, the top election official for Phnom Penh.

"The victory proves democracy is functioning at the grass-roots level," said Phnom Penh Gov. Chea Sophara, a CPP member. Final results won't be announced until later this month.

Cambodia has suffered through a series of authoritarian regimes, including the murderous Khmer Rouge, which ruled from 1975 to 1979 and was responsible for the deaths of at least 1.7 million people in its quest to create an agrarian utopia.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a Ptolemaic temple in southern Egypt, a rare location for antiquities from the era, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said Saturday.

The archaeologists found the ruins that date to the era of Ptolemy II (284-246 B.C.) buried 16 feet deep in Khazendariya, in Sohag province 240 miles south of Cairo, said council spokesman Hassan Saadallah.

The temple contained five statues, including a headless Venus, 12 inches by 5 inches, and some Roman coins. Remains of houses believed to have belonged to the temple's builders were also found, Saadallah said.

"This is the most complete monarchical script dating to the Ptolemaic age ever found" in Egypt, Saadallah said. He said it is very rare to find anything from that time period in the area.